Small Comfort
by Tibbins
Summary: Continuation of 13x11. Sam and Dean finish their conversation in the impala.


**Hey everyone!**

 **So this is just a short continuation of 13x11. I just really don't think that that conversation ended there and I wanted to write the rest of it.**

 **Enjoy ^_^**

"A little tough on Donna back there," Dean said, breaking the gloomy silence that had settled over the speeding impala.

"What?"

Dean shook his head slightly, he wasn't trying to start a fight. "Just saying."

"Was I wrong?" Sam's voice was almost petulant as he turned to look at Dean, almost smug; as though driving the knife deeper into Donna's chest had been the right move, "I mean, when has knowing us ever worked out, for anyone?"

"Well, I mean we save people, Sam," Dean said heatedly. Okay, sure, their lives were punctuated with the corpses of friends, but some of the paragraphs were pretty damn great. He didn't like hearing Sam talk like this.

"Yeah, we also get people killed, Dean. Kaia for instance? She helped us and she died for it" Dean pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth and frowned. Was _that_ what had brought this on? Losing Kaia? Watching Claire learn the hardest lesson of Hunting? That sometimes, good people got hurt and there was no saving them. Dean cast his mind back to a few weeks ago, back before Cas had returned from the dead. He remembered Sam getting him chilli fries, booking a fancy hotel, reading reviews for a strip club, all in an attempt to cheer him up. It hadn't worked. But maybe Sam's own words would.

"Hey, look, I know you're in some sort of a-" he began, but Sam interrupted him.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, don't… you keep saying I'm 'in a dark place' but I'm not, Dean. Everything I'm saying is the truth, it's our lives. And I tried to pretend it didn't have to be, I tried to pretend that we could have Mom back, and Cas and – and help Jack. But we can't. This ends one way for us, Dean. It ends bloody. It ends bad." Sam turned to stare out of the window at the dark, featureless landscape. Dean glanced at his brother and then back to the road.

"You know," he said after a long silence, "you're beginning to sound a lot like me."

Sam grunted.

"That's not a good thing, Sam. I've got major déjà vu here."

Sam didn't respond. Dean pursed his lips. It was strange seeing Sam so defeated, worse, it was downright unsettling.

"You can't do this, Sam." Dean said eventually, "this isn't you."

"It's not _about_ me." Sam said, "it's about how everyone we love gets taken from us. It's about how nothing can just be _good_ for longer than a week. It's about getting trapped in another world for two days and that wasn't even _close_ to the worst thing we've gone through the past month _alone_. You were right. It's all crap. This life takes you apart, bit by bloody bit until there's nothing left."

Dean listened patiently, the heated words burned him like hot oil spitting from a pan. He knew that train of thought, where it led. He knew that darkness. Intimately.

"How long has this been coming on?" Dean asked quietly. That wasn't what he was _really_ asking. What he was really asking was whether or not Sam had been in this same place since the cabin and had been forcing his positive attitude for _him_. Guilt settled on him, heavy and oppressive. He glanced over long enough to see his brother shrug.

"Since Kaia, I guess," he said, "it was just like everything came into perspective, you know? The whole other world was pretty cool and interesting and we ate lizard until we got saved by _children_ , Dean, and one of them died for it, died for _us_."

"I know." Dean said, "but she saved Claire."

"Oh, so it's fine with you because the _right_ kid died?!"

"That's not what I said!" Dean growled, a flush creeping up his neck.

"Yeah, it kinda is."

"Alright, fine, it is. Am I happy about it? No. Does it beat the alternative? Abso-freaking-lutely. Or did _you_ wanna be the one to call Cas and tell him his biological daughter bit it? Or watch Jody's face when Claire didn't make it home?"

"That's not my point, Dean." Sam retorted, brushing past Dean's argument, "my point is that she got dragged into our orbit and now she's dead. And this is just our normal, right? Life goes on, another body auction to stop, another ghost to salt and burn, another spell to break, another friend to build a pyre for. When you actually stop and think about the collateral we've left behind-" he stopped short, apparently not having the words.

"It's too much to think about." Dean said quietly. "Every face you've ever failed screams at you in the dark. Friends and family and strangers on the edges of our lives, people who never would have meant anything to you until you couldn't help them. Too slow, too late, too reckless, too stupid, too _wrong_. Every decision we make leaves behind another body. And a void so big shouldn't be so full." He let out a hollow laugh, "the _collateral_ will never go away Sam, it's just gonna get bigger, no matter what we do."

Sam glanced at him, surprised. Dean just snorted, keeping his eyes on the road.

"You're new to this headspace, Sam. I've been here a while, I know my way around."

"I guess… you just never talk about it."

Dean shrugged, "what's there to talk about? It is what it is."

"Exactly!" Sam said passionately, gesturing with his hands in exasperation, "so why are you even arguing with me? You _agree_ with what I'm saying, you _know_ I'm right. You've said so yourself often enough-"

"And you always talk me out of it!" Dean said, "I'm arguing because this headspace isn't who you are!"

"I'm not some goddamn stereotype, Dean!" Sam exploded. "You know, as much as you talk about wanting to protect me, you still act as though I'm not as affected by the crap we see as you are! You expect me to stay positive because that's what I've always done. I've always had hope that we can get through it and you know why? Because _you_ needed me to! Because I've _always_ had to keep the faith because you never could even though you're the one that needs it. You need to believe so desperately but you _can't_. So _I_ did and then _Cas_ did. Did you ever stop to think that maybe you haven't been protecting so much as being protected? Well, I'm done. I can't hope that things are gonna work out and you know why? Because they never do. Even if Jack finds a way to get him and Mom out, that isn't going to come free. Who's next, huh? One of us? One of _them_? Or just someone in the wrong place at the wrong time? If there's just going to be more collateral, no matter what we do, then why should we bother doing anything at all? Why _shouldn't_ I give up?"

Sam stopped there, breathing heavily, his shoulders shaking with suppressed rage.

Dean had gone cold. Even with Baby's heater turned up the warmth stopped before it hit his skin. His heart twisted painfully and he had to force himself to breathe. His ears were ringing. Sam's words had shaken him to his core. Even moreso because they were _Sam's_ words. Those things that usually rattled around in his own head had taken on a new, deadly sharpness that sliced into his very nerves. Everything that defined Dean threatened to crumble. He wasn't the brother he was supposed to be, he wasn't the protector he'd thought that he was, he wasn't the Righteous Man that Cas had saved, he wasn't the warrior he'd been forged into, he wasn't the son his father had raised. He was… nothing; The weakest of Team Free Will, reliant on the belief of others just to function, which he barely did on a good day. The worst thing about those words was that they weren't _wrong_. Not in the slightest. Sam's optimism was sometimes the only thing that got him through the day. Like it was worth it if only because Sam believed it was. He'd become too reliant on that. Treated his brother like a crutch, forgotten that maybe _he_ needed propping up sometimes too.

Dean couldn't offer his brother faith or positivity, he couldn't give him hope, he couldn't give him anything but the cold truth.

"Because doing nothing is worse."

Sam opened his mouth and then closed it again as he considered the words. His lips pressed into a grim smile and he nodded, a small spark igniting in his eyes.

"Alright then. Let's get them back."

Dean let out a short whoop and pressed down on the gas.

"That's my boy."

 **So what do you think? Not my most uplifting of pieces, nor my most refined. I'm really not very good at focusing on Sam but I feel that Sam is kind of overdue his own breakdown now that Dean's no longer suicidal. He had been kind of out of focus lately and I think 13x11 was a really good episode to explore _his_ reaction to losing Mary and Jack.**

 **Even though Sam was pretty mean in this fic, I _do_ think he's justified. Dean has been relying on him for a while, caught up in his own grief (also completely justified). And seeing as Sam can be a little cruel at times canonically, (knowing all of Dean's buttons, and with a little brother's instinct for pushing), he's just lashing out. He reacts in anger a lot more precisely than Dean does, I think. Dean is more likely to watch his words around Sam, no matter how angry he gets, so he hardly ever says anything intentionally cruel. But I don't believe that Sam understands just how deeply Dean internalises stuff like this. **

**Do you agree?**

 **Anyway, sorry for the rant, this one made me rather contemplative about the brothers :P**

 **Love you guys**

 **Love Tibbins xx**


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